IT Unlike Any Other

Schneier on Security: The Era of “Steal Everything”

From the Protect Your Personal Information Department:

“We’re moving into an era of ‘steal everything’,” said David Emm, a senior security researcher for Kaspersky Labs.

He believes that cyber criminals are now no longer just targeting banks or retailers in the search for financial details, but instead going after social and other networks which encourage the sharing of vast amounts of personal information.

As both data storage and data processing becomes cheaper, more and more data is collected and stored. An unanticipated effect of this is that more and more data can be stolen and used. As the article says, data minimization is the most effective security tool against this sort of thing. But — of course — it’s not in the database owner’s interest to limit the data it collects; it’s in the interests of those whom the data is about.